"Reunited" sequel: Children's Crusade 5/10 [10/J/R | PG-13]
Title: Children's Crusade (5/10)
Author: aibhinn
Pairing: Ten/Jack/Rose
Rating: PG-13 (may go up for later chapters)
Spoilers: For my chaptered fic Reunited. (Link goes to Teaspoon.)
Summary: Jack's past-including his missing memories-comes back for another go…but it's not quite what he expected.
Disclaimer: Not mine. Everything belongs to Auntie Beeb. I'm stuck here on the far side of the wrong continent, playing in her sandbox.
Author's note: Many thanks to measi, dameruth, wendymr, and invisible_lift for the beta-fu. Don't forget, this is a sequel to Reunited, so it's A/U for post-s2 Doctor Who and post-s1 Torchwood.
Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4
Karen's eyes opened wide and her jaw dropped slightly as she walked slowly up the ramp into the TARDIS. Her head swivelled back and forth, taking everything in. This wasn't possible. It wasn't possible. "Wow," she said softly.
Mark-no, Jack-joined her at the top of the ramp, smiling with possessive pride, her bag over his shoulder. "She's something, isn't she?"
"Bigger on the inside," Karen said, still staring. "I didn't know this kind of technology could exist!"
"It can't," the Doctor said as he breezed through the doorway behind them, Rose following just after. "Not for humans, at least. Well, not really for us, either. We couldn't have built a TARDIS, even at the height of our civilisation; all we could do was modify."
Karen turned to Mark, hoping he could decipher that extraordinary statement. "They're grown, not built," he amplified. "So this is the result of evolution, not technology. Well, not solely technology."
"Grown," she repeated in wonder. Hesitantly, she reached out a hand towards one of the support struts-which did look strangely organic, now she thought of it-then hesitated and glanced back at the Doctor for permission. If this ship was a living thing, would it object to her touch?
"Go on," he said, flashing that smile at her. He seemed delighted at her reaction. "She won't mind."
Still cautious despite his reassurance, she ran a hand along the column. It wasn't completely smooth; there were small ridges and bumps along it, like the reddish bark of the broad-leafed evergreen trees that grew on the Boeshane back home. The background hum of machinery changed slightly, oddly approving.
"She likes you," the Doctor said, still smiling. "That's a good sign."
Before she could ask what that meant, he'd tossed his long coat carelessly between the branches of another strut and strode past her to the enormous centre console that dominated the room. His plimsolls caused the metal grating of the floor to clatter slightly with each step. She watched as he moved around the console with unerring grace, flipping a switch here, turning a knob there. It looked casual, as though he were manipulating controls at random and without paying much attention, but she had no doubt that each movement was precise and controlled, no matter what it looked like to her. The engines started up, the central column began pulsing up and down, and a barely-noticeable tremor hummed through the ship and up into her through the soles of her shoes. The ship was in motion.
A moment or two later, the tremor subsided slightly, and the pulsing became less strained, like an athlete's heartbeat slowing down to rest after he's finished his race. "There," the Doctor said. "Safe in the Vortex. Jack, why don't you get Karen settled while Rose and I get things set up here? It'll take us a while to calibrate the sensors and shields. I don't want to take a chance on us being discovered when we return to the time stream."
So Rose was a member of the crew as well. Karen had wondered whether she was; while Rose moved like someone who could take care of herself, she looked far too young to be much help on a time ship. Mark-no, dammit, she had to remember that these people called him Jack-had told Karen a little bit about Rose, not much, but enough that Karen knew Rose was a product of 21st-century Britain. Twenty-one years old in this time stream, in fact, though if Rose had been time-travelling she could be several years older than her legal age. Maybe as old as twenty-seven, though unless she'd had access to cosmetics and moisturisers far beyond her own century, there was no way she was more than thirty, tops.
Mark-no, Jack-gestured for Karen to precede him through the door into the rest of the ship. With a bit of trepidation, Karen stepped through the doorway and into the corridor. She stopped and gasped.
The corridor stretched on forever. On and on and on, with doors sporadically placed on either side. A few yards down, another corridor branched off to the left, and a dozen or so yards beyond that, one branched off to the right, but this main corridor carried on as far as she could see.
Karen blinked. "Much bigger on the inside," she said.
"I hope so," Mark said quietly. Frowning, she shot him a glance, but he didn't elaborate; just started forward. She followed, trying to pay close attention to which way she went. This place looked like it would be easy to get lost in, and she didn't want to risk it.
They turned right at the first crossing, and then stopped three doors in on the left. "Here you are," Mark said, opening the door for her. She smiled her thanks and stepped inside, wondering what she'd find.
To her surprise, the room was neither palatial nor basic to the point of boring. The double bed was a pleasant discovery-she'd resigned herself to the thought of a single-as were the pair of chairs and reading lamp next to the dressing table. A bookcase against the wall held a wide range of reading material, and a screen was set into the wall where it could be easily seen from either the chairs or the bed. "All the comforts of home," Mark said, setting her bag down on the bed. "You've got a full en-suite through there-" He indicated a door she hadn't noticed. "-and the kitchen's just two doors down from here. You can't miss it." He smiled, but it was neither the open smile she remembered from their childhood, nor the knowing smile from the last time she'd seen him before he'd been arrested and mind-wiped. This was polite, almost perfunctory, as though she were a stranger, not his-
His what? her conscience prodded her. His lover? His friend? His confidante?
She'd been all of those things and more for him at different points of their lives. What was she now?
"I wouldn't recommend doing much exploring until one of us can show you around," he was continuing. "This place can be confusing. It took a week before I could find my way to more than the kitchen without help."
Was that friendly advice, or a warning not to snoop? She decided to test it. Letting a corner of her mouth quirk upwards, she sauntered the few steps towards him, projecting her invitation. "So maybe you'll have to draw me a map," she said, and reached up to draw his head down to hers.
He went, but there was a resistance there, and when he touched his lips to hers, it was only for the briefest of moments. He reached up to take hold of the hand she'd slid to the back of his neck and brought it down to his chest. "Karen," he began, looking uncomfortable. "I don't . . . ."
It hurt. It hurt more than she'd imagined it would and, unexpectedly, it made her angry. Not at him; at herself. She was a grown woman. A little rejection was nothing new. Being hurt was a child's reaction. But it's Mark! part of her heart screamed in protest. A little voice in the back of her mind replied coolly, And we're surprised, why?
"No, it's all right," she lied, smiling brightly and giving his hand a squeeze before pulling hers away. "It's been a long time for you."
"A very, very long time." He put his hands on her shoulders, rubbing her collarbone with a thumb. "Karen, it's not you. It's . . . ." He sighed, glanced away, then looked back. "I've got partners now," he said quietly. "They're my lovers, my friends, and my team. And it's . . . not an open relationship."
"Do they know-" she began, then stopped.
"They know about us before. After James. But that's the last time you and I were together, Karen, and it's been a very, very long time in my personal timeline since then. I can't do something to hurt my partners because of something that happened so long ago."
Karen opened her mouth, then closed it again. No, she didn't need to go there. It would only make things worse.
"What?" Mark asked.
"Nothing." Swearing inwardly, Karen looked away.
"It's not nothing." He leaned over so he could look into her averted eyes. "What?"
Something in her expression must have given it away, because his face changed subtly. "We were together after that, weren't we," he said-a statement, not a question. "During those missing two years."
"Yes," she admitted.
"While we were investigating the prison camps?"
"Yes."
He let his hands drop, running one of them through his hair in a familiar gesture that added one more hairline fracture to her heart. "I-" he said helplessly. "I don't know what to say."
"There's nothing to say," she said, managing to keep the quaver out of her voice. "You don't remember-you couldn't possibly remember. And you've got other partners now, partners who obviously love you very much, or they wouldn't have been shadowing us in the Plass yesterday." She dredged up a smile, and so did he. Neither of them, she thought, were very good at it. "Go on," she said. "The hotel where I stayed had a shower stall, and I've been wanting a proper bath for days. I'll meet you for dinner later."
He let his hand drop from his hair and looked at her closely. She raised her chin slightly. "Go on," she repeated. "I'll be fine."
Mark hesitated another minute, then nodded. "All right," he said. "I'll see you in a couple of hours."
As he turned away, reaching for the doorknob, she said somewhat sadly, "I guess I'll have to get used to thinking of you as Jack now, won't I?"
Mark-Jack-stopped and looked back at her. "It's who I am now," he said gently. "No matter who I used to be."
Karen nodded, and he left the room, closing the doorknob with a soft click. She sat down heavily on the edge of the bed and rested her elbows on her knees, leaning forward to rub her face. She should have known, she berated herself. Anyone as old as M-as Jack was couldn't have held onto his past, even if he'd remembered their last relationship. Besides, he couldn't exactly spend his life with her; she'd be gone in the blink of an eye. At least this Doctor and Rose Tyler could be with him through the centuries.
"And just when were you planning to tell me about your immortality?" she murmured to herself. "Ever? Probably not. Once the rescue operation's over, I'll never see you again."
Perhaps it was better this way. This way, nothing interfered with the job at hand.
She kicked off her court shoes and stood, pulling off her top as she headed for the en-suite. A bath really did sound good.
***
Jack walked slowly through the corridors. Once he was out of the area the TARDIS intended to close off into a loop, he felt the unsettling sensation of things shifting behind him, but he refused to look back. He knew he'd see nothing different. Only Karen wouldn't be able to find her way out; the rest of them could get in and out at their convenience.
Convenience. Jack huffed out a breath of mild frustration tinged with guilt. Had Karen searched him out with the hope that they could continue the relationship they'd apparently begun before he'd been mind-wiped? Did she know how long it had been for him since then?
No, of course she didn't. She had no idea that he was all but immortal now. Being more than a hundred years old wouldn't have been at all shocking in their home century, but he'd have been an old man. Instead, he still looked thirty-eight; and who knew when, or if, he'd actually age cosmetically?
He didn't feel guilty for having said no to Karen. Monogamous-or, in this case, duogamous-relationships might not have been the norm when he grew up, but this was a different time, a different set of circumstances, and an entirely different pair of people. They'd never discussed outside relationships, the three of them, and he wasn't about to hurt the people he loved by doing something so easily avoided.
But he did feel guilty that he'd not picked up on Karen's hints. They'd been there, he acknowledged to himself; she'd definitely hinted, in more ways than one, that she'd be interested in a fling. Not in words so much as in body language-even speaking to him in the 'Shaney dialect was a hint: a reminder of a time when they'd been closer, more intimate.
And then he kicked himself again. He'd been the one to begin speaking 'Shaney to her, not the other way around. No wonder she'd expected him to-
"Jack?"
He startled, bringing his attention back to the present, and realised he was about to walk right past their bedroom. Rose stood in the open doorway, leaning against the doorjamb in her sock feet, arms folded, one foot crossed casually over the other. "You all right?" she asked.
"Yeah," he lied, and smiled, slipping past her into the room as he shucked his greatcoat and hung it up on the coat rack by the door. "Karen's settled," he said. "I left her getting ready to take a bath. And I felt the TARDIS close the loop, so she's safe until dinner. I was thinking about take-away Indian; what do you think?"
Rose had turned to watch him as he came in, but otherwise hadn't changed her position. "She came on to you, didn't she?" she asked. Not a condemnation, nor a demand: just a question.
Jack sighed and slipped his hands into his pockets. "Yeah."
"So why didn't you stay?"
"What do you take me for?" he snapped, and immediately regretted it. He took another deep breath and pressed the heel of his hand to his forehead. "Sorry."
There were no footsteps to warn him; suddenly, he felt her hand on his forearm, gently tugging down. He lowered his hands and forced himself to look into her eyes.
"Do you want to talk about it?" she asked.
Jack looked at her for a long moment, then turned and walked over to the edge of the sunken bed. Methodically, he unlaced his boots and pulled them off, then sat down on the mattress, his shoulders propped up by pillows. He held out a hand in invitation, and Rose followed, her pink socks a bright contrast to the deep velvet brown of the duvet. She settled down beside him and leaned against the pillows as well, her arm resting on the raised floor by their heads, her body stretched out on her side, facing him. She said nothing, just waited.
"We were together before I was mind-wiped," Jack said a long moment later. "Karen and I, I mean. We were lovers. I just found out."
"Because it was wiped along with everything else from those two years."
"Yeah." He rested his head against the raised floor behind them. "I thought after more than a hundred years since the Game Station, I'd know myself pretty damn well," he said, staring at the ceiling. "But now she's back, and it feels as though I've just woken up and realised my memories are gone. I'm floundering again. I'm adrift. All these important things, vital things, that I was doing, and I don't remember a damn thing. I don't remember getting back together with Karen Delapaz after fifteen years, I don't remember our investigation, I don't remember knowing about James's son, I don't remember. I thought I'd come to terms with that, but it's like . . . having put a bandage over a stab wound. It's covered and may even be healing, but no matter how you like to pretend, the wound is still there, and soon as you poke it there's no denying it."
Rose ran a hand down his arm soothingly. "Jack," she said, "it doesn't matter what you did or didn't do in those two years. Even if you remembered them, even if you'd never had your memories taken, you'd still be a different person now. You said it yourself: It's been over a hundred years. You're bound to be different, and nobody can expect you to pick up a former life right where you left off. Even if it had only been ten years, she couldn't expect that."
Jack shrugged, still looking at the ceiling. "The relationship, maybe," he said. "But the children. That's what I can't forgive, Rose. I forgot about the children."
"You didn't forget," the Doctor said from the doorway. They both startled, looking over towards him. "It was taken from you." He came in, sat down and removed his trainers, then unbuttoned his suit jacket and tossed it over the back of the chair before joining them on the bed. He settled down on Jack's other side, propped up on an elbow like Rose. "Do you want to tell us what's really bothering you?"
Damn. The Doctor had a talent for that: looking right through whatever smokescreen Jack had put up-whether consciously or unconsciously-and seeing to the heart of the problem.
Jack sat up, turned around, and faced his lovers, sitting cross-legged on the duvet with his back to the foot of the bed. "I'm taking you both into danger," he said simply.
"And how is this different from our usual life?" Rose asked.
"Because I know there's danger here," Jack told her soberly. "If this was bad enough that they stole my memories to cover it, they're willing to do just about anything to keep it under wraps. Including shooting first and asking questions later."
"But they didn't kill you the first time," the Doctor pointed out. "They stole your memories, but kept you alive."
"Yeah, because they didn't want to lose their good little soldier. I don't think they knew I knew it was unjustified; likely they thought I'd believe the cover story, that I was caught doing something truly horrible, and they gave me the mind-wipe as a favour. In the normal way of things, I'd have been promoted sideways to HQ and flown a desk for the next five or ten years, or however long it took them to decide they could trust me again. And I'd have worked my ass off to earn my way back. But with that one little mistake, leaving me with the certain knowledge that I hadn't deserved to be wiped no matter what they said officially, I was left with no choice but to leave."
"Maybe that was the point," Rose said thoughtfully.
Jack blinked. "What do you mean?"
"What if they didn't want you to be a good little soldier stuck behind a desk somewhere?" Rose said, speaking slowly as though she were working this out as she went. "What if they wanted you to get out of there?"
"But why?" Jack asked.
Rose shrugged. "Someone thought you didn't deserve the wipe and wanted you to know it? Someone knew what you were investigating, and wanted to leave you an 'out' to get back into the investigation at some point? Someone hated you enough to leave you with the knowledge that you lost two years of memories for no reason? There are lots of possibilities."
"Which means it's possible they know we're coming," the Doctor said, beating Jack to the punch. "Could Karen still be working for them?"
"Yeah," Jack said reluctantly, feeling ice forming in the pit of his stomach. "Wittingly or unwittingly, she could. Which means we could be walking into a trap. And I'm leading you there."
"Bollocks," the Doctor said calmly. "We're walking there together. Trust me, Jack, Rose and I are perfectly capable of saying no if we don't want to do something. This, we want to do. As you said before, we can't take the chance that there really are kids being held against their will. Freeing them is worth a little danger, don't you think?"
"Yes," Rose said firmly. "I do."
Jack looked helplessly between his two partners. "You two are insane," he said at last.
Rose grinned. "Makes us a good match, then, doesn't it?"
Author: aibhinn
Pairing: Ten/Jack/Rose
Rating: PG-13 (may go up for later chapters)
Spoilers: For my chaptered fic Reunited. (Link goes to Teaspoon.)
Summary: Jack's past-including his missing memories-comes back for another go…but it's not quite what he expected.
Disclaimer: Not mine. Everything belongs to Auntie Beeb. I'm stuck here on the far side of the wrong continent, playing in her sandbox.
Author's note: Many thanks to measi, dameruth, wendymr, and invisible_lift for the beta-fu. Don't forget, this is a sequel to Reunited, so it's A/U for post-s2 Doctor Who and post-s1 Torchwood.
Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4
Karen's eyes opened wide and her jaw dropped slightly as she walked slowly up the ramp into the TARDIS. Her head swivelled back and forth, taking everything in. This wasn't possible. It wasn't possible. "Wow," she said softly.
Mark-no, Jack-joined her at the top of the ramp, smiling with possessive pride, her bag over his shoulder. "She's something, isn't she?"
"Bigger on the inside," Karen said, still staring. "I didn't know this kind of technology could exist!"
"It can't," the Doctor said as he breezed through the doorway behind them, Rose following just after. "Not for humans, at least. Well, not really for us, either. We couldn't have built a TARDIS, even at the height of our civilisation; all we could do was modify."
Karen turned to Mark, hoping he could decipher that extraordinary statement. "They're grown, not built," he amplified. "So this is the result of evolution, not technology. Well, not solely technology."
"Grown," she repeated in wonder. Hesitantly, she reached out a hand towards one of the support struts-which did look strangely organic, now she thought of it-then hesitated and glanced back at the Doctor for permission. If this ship was a living thing, would it object to her touch?
"Go on," he said, flashing that smile at her. He seemed delighted at her reaction. "She won't mind."
Still cautious despite his reassurance, she ran a hand along the column. It wasn't completely smooth; there were small ridges and bumps along it, like the reddish bark of the broad-leafed evergreen trees that grew on the Boeshane back home. The background hum of machinery changed slightly, oddly approving.
"She likes you," the Doctor said, still smiling. "That's a good sign."
Before she could ask what that meant, he'd tossed his long coat carelessly between the branches of another strut and strode past her to the enormous centre console that dominated the room. His plimsolls caused the metal grating of the floor to clatter slightly with each step. She watched as he moved around the console with unerring grace, flipping a switch here, turning a knob there. It looked casual, as though he were manipulating controls at random and without paying much attention, but she had no doubt that each movement was precise and controlled, no matter what it looked like to her. The engines started up, the central column began pulsing up and down, and a barely-noticeable tremor hummed through the ship and up into her through the soles of her shoes. The ship was in motion.
A moment or two later, the tremor subsided slightly, and the pulsing became less strained, like an athlete's heartbeat slowing down to rest after he's finished his race. "There," the Doctor said. "Safe in the Vortex. Jack, why don't you get Karen settled while Rose and I get things set up here? It'll take us a while to calibrate the sensors and shields. I don't want to take a chance on us being discovered when we return to the time stream."
So Rose was a member of the crew as well. Karen had wondered whether she was; while Rose moved like someone who could take care of herself, she looked far too young to be much help on a time ship. Mark-no, dammit, she had to remember that these people called him Jack-had told Karen a little bit about Rose, not much, but enough that Karen knew Rose was a product of 21st-century Britain. Twenty-one years old in this time stream, in fact, though if Rose had been time-travelling she could be several years older than her legal age. Maybe as old as twenty-seven, though unless she'd had access to cosmetics and moisturisers far beyond her own century, there was no way she was more than thirty, tops.
Mark-no, Jack-gestured for Karen to precede him through the door into the rest of the ship. With a bit of trepidation, Karen stepped through the doorway and into the corridor. She stopped and gasped.
The corridor stretched on forever. On and on and on, with doors sporadically placed on either side. A few yards down, another corridor branched off to the left, and a dozen or so yards beyond that, one branched off to the right, but this main corridor carried on as far as she could see.
Karen blinked. "Much bigger on the inside," she said.
"I hope so," Mark said quietly. Frowning, she shot him a glance, but he didn't elaborate; just started forward. She followed, trying to pay close attention to which way she went. This place looked like it would be easy to get lost in, and she didn't want to risk it.
They turned right at the first crossing, and then stopped three doors in on the left. "Here you are," Mark said, opening the door for her. She smiled her thanks and stepped inside, wondering what she'd find.
To her surprise, the room was neither palatial nor basic to the point of boring. The double bed was a pleasant discovery-she'd resigned herself to the thought of a single-as were the pair of chairs and reading lamp next to the dressing table. A bookcase against the wall held a wide range of reading material, and a screen was set into the wall where it could be easily seen from either the chairs or the bed. "All the comforts of home," Mark said, setting her bag down on the bed. "You've got a full en-suite through there-" He indicated a door she hadn't noticed. "-and the kitchen's just two doors down from here. You can't miss it." He smiled, but it was neither the open smile she remembered from their childhood, nor the knowing smile from the last time she'd seen him before he'd been arrested and mind-wiped. This was polite, almost perfunctory, as though she were a stranger, not his-
His what? her conscience prodded her. His lover? His friend? His confidante?
She'd been all of those things and more for him at different points of their lives. What was she now?
"I wouldn't recommend doing much exploring until one of us can show you around," he was continuing. "This place can be confusing. It took a week before I could find my way to more than the kitchen without help."
Was that friendly advice, or a warning not to snoop? She decided to test it. Letting a corner of her mouth quirk upwards, she sauntered the few steps towards him, projecting her invitation. "So maybe you'll have to draw me a map," she said, and reached up to draw his head down to hers.
He went, but there was a resistance there, and when he touched his lips to hers, it was only for the briefest of moments. He reached up to take hold of the hand she'd slid to the back of his neck and brought it down to his chest. "Karen," he began, looking uncomfortable. "I don't . . . ."
It hurt. It hurt more than she'd imagined it would and, unexpectedly, it made her angry. Not at him; at herself. She was a grown woman. A little rejection was nothing new. Being hurt was a child's reaction. But it's Mark! part of her heart screamed in protest. A little voice in the back of her mind replied coolly, And we're surprised, why?
"No, it's all right," she lied, smiling brightly and giving his hand a squeeze before pulling hers away. "It's been a long time for you."
"A very, very long time." He put his hands on her shoulders, rubbing her collarbone with a thumb. "Karen, it's not you. It's . . . ." He sighed, glanced away, then looked back. "I've got partners now," he said quietly. "They're my lovers, my friends, and my team. And it's . . . not an open relationship."
"Do they know-" she began, then stopped.
"They know about us before. After James. But that's the last time you and I were together, Karen, and it's been a very, very long time in my personal timeline since then. I can't do something to hurt my partners because of something that happened so long ago."
Karen opened her mouth, then closed it again. No, she didn't need to go there. It would only make things worse.
"What?" Mark asked.
"Nothing." Swearing inwardly, Karen looked away.
"It's not nothing." He leaned over so he could look into her averted eyes. "What?"
Something in her expression must have given it away, because his face changed subtly. "We were together after that, weren't we," he said-a statement, not a question. "During those missing two years."
"Yes," she admitted.
"While we were investigating the prison camps?"
"Yes."
He let his hands drop, running one of them through his hair in a familiar gesture that added one more hairline fracture to her heart. "I-" he said helplessly. "I don't know what to say."
"There's nothing to say," she said, managing to keep the quaver out of her voice. "You don't remember-you couldn't possibly remember. And you've got other partners now, partners who obviously love you very much, or they wouldn't have been shadowing us in the Plass yesterday." She dredged up a smile, and so did he. Neither of them, she thought, were very good at it. "Go on," she said. "The hotel where I stayed had a shower stall, and I've been wanting a proper bath for days. I'll meet you for dinner later."
He let his hand drop from his hair and looked at her closely. She raised her chin slightly. "Go on," she repeated. "I'll be fine."
Mark hesitated another minute, then nodded. "All right," he said. "I'll see you in a couple of hours."
As he turned away, reaching for the doorknob, she said somewhat sadly, "I guess I'll have to get used to thinking of you as Jack now, won't I?"
Mark-Jack-stopped and looked back at her. "It's who I am now," he said gently. "No matter who I used to be."
Karen nodded, and he left the room, closing the doorknob with a soft click. She sat down heavily on the edge of the bed and rested her elbows on her knees, leaning forward to rub her face. She should have known, she berated herself. Anyone as old as M-as Jack was couldn't have held onto his past, even if he'd remembered their last relationship. Besides, he couldn't exactly spend his life with her; she'd be gone in the blink of an eye. At least this Doctor and Rose Tyler could be with him through the centuries.
"And just when were you planning to tell me about your immortality?" she murmured to herself. "Ever? Probably not. Once the rescue operation's over, I'll never see you again."
Perhaps it was better this way. This way, nothing interfered with the job at hand.
She kicked off her court shoes and stood, pulling off her top as she headed for the en-suite. A bath really did sound good.
***
Jack walked slowly through the corridors. Once he was out of the area the TARDIS intended to close off into a loop, he felt the unsettling sensation of things shifting behind him, but he refused to look back. He knew he'd see nothing different. Only Karen wouldn't be able to find her way out; the rest of them could get in and out at their convenience.
Convenience. Jack huffed out a breath of mild frustration tinged with guilt. Had Karen searched him out with the hope that they could continue the relationship they'd apparently begun before he'd been mind-wiped? Did she know how long it had been for him since then?
No, of course she didn't. She had no idea that he was all but immortal now. Being more than a hundred years old wouldn't have been at all shocking in their home century, but he'd have been an old man. Instead, he still looked thirty-eight; and who knew when, or if, he'd actually age cosmetically?
He didn't feel guilty for having said no to Karen. Monogamous-or, in this case, duogamous-relationships might not have been the norm when he grew up, but this was a different time, a different set of circumstances, and an entirely different pair of people. They'd never discussed outside relationships, the three of them, and he wasn't about to hurt the people he loved by doing something so easily avoided.
But he did feel guilty that he'd not picked up on Karen's hints. They'd been there, he acknowledged to himself; she'd definitely hinted, in more ways than one, that she'd be interested in a fling. Not in words so much as in body language-even speaking to him in the 'Shaney dialect was a hint: a reminder of a time when they'd been closer, more intimate.
And then he kicked himself again. He'd been the one to begin speaking 'Shaney to her, not the other way around. No wonder she'd expected him to-
"Jack?"
He startled, bringing his attention back to the present, and realised he was about to walk right past their bedroom. Rose stood in the open doorway, leaning against the doorjamb in her sock feet, arms folded, one foot crossed casually over the other. "You all right?" she asked.
"Yeah," he lied, and smiled, slipping past her into the room as he shucked his greatcoat and hung it up on the coat rack by the door. "Karen's settled," he said. "I left her getting ready to take a bath. And I felt the TARDIS close the loop, so she's safe until dinner. I was thinking about take-away Indian; what do you think?"
Rose had turned to watch him as he came in, but otherwise hadn't changed her position. "She came on to you, didn't she?" she asked. Not a condemnation, nor a demand: just a question.
Jack sighed and slipped his hands into his pockets. "Yeah."
"So why didn't you stay?"
"What do you take me for?" he snapped, and immediately regretted it. He took another deep breath and pressed the heel of his hand to his forehead. "Sorry."
There were no footsteps to warn him; suddenly, he felt her hand on his forearm, gently tugging down. He lowered his hands and forced himself to look into her eyes.
"Do you want to talk about it?" she asked.
Jack looked at her for a long moment, then turned and walked over to the edge of the sunken bed. Methodically, he unlaced his boots and pulled them off, then sat down on the mattress, his shoulders propped up by pillows. He held out a hand in invitation, and Rose followed, her pink socks a bright contrast to the deep velvet brown of the duvet. She settled down beside him and leaned against the pillows as well, her arm resting on the raised floor by their heads, her body stretched out on her side, facing him. She said nothing, just waited.
"We were together before I was mind-wiped," Jack said a long moment later. "Karen and I, I mean. We were lovers. I just found out."
"Because it was wiped along with everything else from those two years."
"Yeah." He rested his head against the raised floor behind them. "I thought after more than a hundred years since the Game Station, I'd know myself pretty damn well," he said, staring at the ceiling. "But now she's back, and it feels as though I've just woken up and realised my memories are gone. I'm floundering again. I'm adrift. All these important things, vital things, that I was doing, and I don't remember a damn thing. I don't remember getting back together with Karen Delapaz after fifteen years, I don't remember our investigation, I don't remember knowing about James's son, I don't remember. I thought I'd come to terms with that, but it's like . . . having put a bandage over a stab wound. It's covered and may even be healing, but no matter how you like to pretend, the wound is still there, and soon as you poke it there's no denying it."
Rose ran a hand down his arm soothingly. "Jack," she said, "it doesn't matter what you did or didn't do in those two years. Even if you remembered them, even if you'd never had your memories taken, you'd still be a different person now. You said it yourself: It's been over a hundred years. You're bound to be different, and nobody can expect you to pick up a former life right where you left off. Even if it had only been ten years, she couldn't expect that."
Jack shrugged, still looking at the ceiling. "The relationship, maybe," he said. "But the children. That's what I can't forgive, Rose. I forgot about the children."
"You didn't forget," the Doctor said from the doorway. They both startled, looking over towards him. "It was taken from you." He came in, sat down and removed his trainers, then unbuttoned his suit jacket and tossed it over the back of the chair before joining them on the bed. He settled down on Jack's other side, propped up on an elbow like Rose. "Do you want to tell us what's really bothering you?"
Damn. The Doctor had a talent for that: looking right through whatever smokescreen Jack had put up-whether consciously or unconsciously-and seeing to the heart of the problem.
Jack sat up, turned around, and faced his lovers, sitting cross-legged on the duvet with his back to the foot of the bed. "I'm taking you both into danger," he said simply.
"And how is this different from our usual life?" Rose asked.
"Because I know there's danger here," Jack told her soberly. "If this was bad enough that they stole my memories to cover it, they're willing to do just about anything to keep it under wraps. Including shooting first and asking questions later."
"But they didn't kill you the first time," the Doctor pointed out. "They stole your memories, but kept you alive."
"Yeah, because they didn't want to lose their good little soldier. I don't think they knew I knew it was unjustified; likely they thought I'd believe the cover story, that I was caught doing something truly horrible, and they gave me the mind-wipe as a favour. In the normal way of things, I'd have been promoted sideways to HQ and flown a desk for the next five or ten years, or however long it took them to decide they could trust me again. And I'd have worked my ass off to earn my way back. But with that one little mistake, leaving me with the certain knowledge that I hadn't deserved to be wiped no matter what they said officially, I was left with no choice but to leave."
"Maybe that was the point," Rose said thoughtfully.
Jack blinked. "What do you mean?"
"What if they didn't want you to be a good little soldier stuck behind a desk somewhere?" Rose said, speaking slowly as though she were working this out as she went. "What if they wanted you to get out of there?"
"But why?" Jack asked.
Rose shrugged. "Someone thought you didn't deserve the wipe and wanted you to know it? Someone knew what you were investigating, and wanted to leave you an 'out' to get back into the investigation at some point? Someone hated you enough to leave you with the knowledge that you lost two years of memories for no reason? There are lots of possibilities."
"Which means it's possible they know we're coming," the Doctor said, beating Jack to the punch. "Could Karen still be working for them?"
"Yeah," Jack said reluctantly, feeling ice forming in the pit of his stomach. "Wittingly or unwittingly, she could. Which means we could be walking into a trap. And I'm leading you there."
"Bollocks," the Doctor said calmly. "We're walking there together. Trust me, Jack, Rose and I are perfectly capable of saying no if we don't want to do something. This, we want to do. As you said before, we can't take the chance that there really are kids being held against their will. Freeing them is worth a little danger, don't you think?"
"Yes," Rose said firmly. "I do."
Jack looked helplessly between his two partners. "You two are insane," he said at last.
Rose grinned. "Makes us a good match, then, doesn't it?"